


Covet

by Euregatto



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: And Now For Something Completely Different, Awkward Flirting, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Drabble-esque, Drunk Sex, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Inappropriate Humor, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Post-War, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Sabotage, Sexual Content, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-17 16:35:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4673777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Euregatto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Manipulation is Felix’s strong suit, and understandably, it frustrates him when it doesn’t work on Locus. So he improvises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. War

**Author's Note:**

> A backstory about the origins of Locus and Felix, leading up to present events, in the form of chronological drabble-esque chapters.

The first time they meet is on a blood-soused battlefield, stressed and indecently stripped of any inner emotions to combat the blaze of the settling tension. He’s sprawled out under the decapitated corpse of a front line fighter. The shock has set in, crippling his natural strive to clamber to his feet and remember how to _breathe_. The thrill of being alive avoids him as he scrambles desperately after it. And in a way he isn’t frightened by this sight. Instead, it’s his own lack of sympathy for the casualties that really surmounts to concern.

He never anticipated war to be like this.

His face burns. It feels similar to getting scathed by fire. When he swallows his throat tenses, replicates that searing sensation. And his limbs, sore, inflamed; can’t move them, locked beneath the inert man’s weight. The damage to his helmet gives him something to focus on instead, allowing his swollen eyes to glimpse at intrusive rays of sunlight filtering in through the gorges. Maybe it’ll get dark before the recovery crew finds him. Maybe he’ll bleed out before then.

Gravel crunches vociferously to his right, alerting him to the briskly approaching figure. Not that he cares much for what happens to him right now.

“Jesus dude, what the fuck happened here?”

The soldier poised over him blocks out the dual glaring suns now descending out of the sky. Their shadow cascades like black velvet over the cracked visor. From this angle their silhouette is almost grim, rigid with authority yet shoulders dipped in relaxation. The contradictory stance combined with the honey-smoothed tone peaks his fascination in a way few things in life ever have. Ample hands decidedly reach down to grasp the swollen carcass, and although rigor mortis has set in they manage to haul it over without so much more than a disinterested grunt.

“Come on, get up.”

“He didn’t see it,” he mutters tersely, his mind ringing, the memories that plague his afterthoughts rotting his brain like black mold. “One moment we were winning, the next, I’m…– _we_ – didn’t even see it coming. And when he fell on me I was knocked unconscious.” There’s a hesitant, tremulous breath that tumbles from his chest. “His blood’s on me, isn’t it?”

A pause. “It’s _all_ over you. Yeah, you’re gonna want to wash that off before it sets in. Blood is the worst fuckin’ thing you can get on your armor.”

“Wonderful.”

The soldier slides their arms under his. With a single heave they upright him, unceremoniously dropping him back against a stone face so his head knocks into the palette. He’s jarred awake by the abrupt movements. “That’s kind of hilarious, man, surviving cause some asshole Elites buried you under your own friend. Gotta say though, unfortunate shit like that is what dictates the line dividing life and death, and considering how you’re one of the last fifty still left alive on this goddamn battle site, I’d say you’re super fuckin’ lucky to be breathing.”

 _Fifty_. That’s only one-tenth of the soldiers deployed into the field today. He finds himself subconsciously pressing his fingertips pliantly against the carvings in his helmet.

“That wound looks bad, but at least it’ll leave a nice scar. I’ll get to call you cross face.”

He glares up, notices the intricate details in the uniform and the unusually unique helmet; another soldier from his platoon, might have been sent out into the field during the final wave. The kid certainly doesn’t _look_ like they’ve seen the wrong end of an alien’s sword. He exhales an agitated breath that shakes unnoticeably, still reeling from the trauma and the encroaching pain. “You say this assuming I don’t have a name.”

“I bet it’s something boring.”

A gruff sigh. “Do you ever stop talking?”

“Well if you don’t want the company, mum’s the word.”

“…Locus.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“I don’t like my real name.”

The recovery soldier digresses for a moment, considers that a viable reply. Cackles. “How’s this? If I tell you mine you’ll have to tell me yours.”

“I’m not agreeing to that.”

“I’m Felix.”

Locus scratches at the soreness welling up under his helmet. Migraine or face pain, he can’t distinguish. “Like I said. Not agreeing to it.”

“Fine, _fine_. Be grumpy. I’ll leave your sour attitude to the medics.”

Locus grunts as this other soldier, as _Felix_ , tromps off into the eerily silent battlefield to dig up potential survivors, and has to tilt his weary head back just to keep himself steadily conscious.

_What a prick._


	2. Roommates

“I don’t fucking believe it. Look who it is!”

Locus is at the door of his new quarters with his bag in one hand, scratching at the irritation around his scars with the other, when a dreadfully familiar voice echoes out from behind him. He doesn’t quite register the distinctly mischievous accent for a prolonged moment until a hand claps the back of his shoulder. And then it hits him, and he nearly sighs in exasperation. “Hello, Felix,” he says tonelessly, sliding his ID card through the access slot. It blinks green and the division slides open.

Felix isn’t quite what Locus had pictured, with ochre eyes that could cut through steel and a fohawk dyed orange to contrast chestnut hair. He looks more like a candy corn than a fucking soldier, which amuses Locus to an extent. Additionally, there’s an old scar that marks up the lower lip, arcing down to the tip of his chin. Perhaps a knife wound.

Fascinating.

“How’ve ya been, Cross Face?”

“Don’t call me that,” Locus shoots back.

“But I did say it that was going to be a nice scar. You should consider it a goddamn _miracle_ that you didn’t lose your eyes.”

“ _Hm_.” Locus pretends to ignore him as he saunters into his new room, a standard square with two of everything – bunk beds, twin nightstands, twin dressers, twin footlockers. He takes note of how he’s probably going to need to mark his stuff with some kind of tape to prevent confusion with his new roommate –

Felix carelessly tosses his stuff onto the upper bunk.

“What are you doing?” Locus asks incredulously.

“Uh”—Felix spreads his arms to the room in confusion—“moving in? You do know we’re assigned together, right?”

Locus can feel a mild headache coming on. “Mm. Unfortunate.”

“You should be thankful you’re even _here_ to complain about the arrangements. Do you know how many soldiers I found alive after you? Nada. Zip. Zilch.” He makes an O with his forefinger and thumb. “Absolutely fucking _no one_. Let’s not even count how many kicked the bucket in the hospital. Jesus, they’re still digging up remains out on the battlefield.”

Locus’s stomach drops at the thought; he can still feel the phantom weight of the corpse on his chest, the blood that cascades over his face, the iron guilt of failure in his veins. War is haunting, a malicious, malevolent ghost. He wonders if any of it bothers Felix, if the vice of human morale applies to someone like him. Because Locus knows nothing about this intriguing soldier, about his combat skills or his credence, his past or his hypothetical ambitions. If anything he’s all talk and no action, nothing more than a cocky foot soldier in a war larger than anything they can comprehend.

But Locus doubts that. There’s something about Felix that rubs him the wrong way, but he can settle for passive curiosity. For now.

“How many?”

“How many what?”

Locus glances at the window, at the sky hanging sadly outside of their temporary UNSC-operated facility. “How many survived, in the end?”

Felix exhales, runs a heavily scarred hand through his hair. “Technically, thirty-seven.” He slides a knife out of his combat boot, throws it carelessly into the side of one of the dressers. It embeds in the wood with ease. “But let’s not talk about how many of us are gonna suffer from the trauma.”

Locus presses his lips into a thin line.

“Shit, we haven’t taken damages like that in such a long time. That’s why I was so fucking surprised to find you still breathing.” A pause. “Well, attempting to breathe. Must have been hard with all that dead weight on your chest.”

“They were good soldiers.”

“Who knows what they really were.” Felix stretches his arm, offering out his hand. “But, hey, we’re alive. And we’re roommates. So, what do you say, pal? Friends?”

Locus reluctantly nods, accepts his gesture. “Let’s settle for acquaintances.”

Felix is like a summer blaze, a tornado forming in the distance. Locus is a storm in the winter sky, rising waves of a hurricane-driven tide. They’re going to be disastrous together. And as if by mutual understanding, they’re willing to ride it out until the universe collapses into stardust and debris.

**Author's Note:**

> *watches the last s13 update, writes this instead* haha, nope.
> 
> You can keep track of story updates (such as progression, writing streams, etc) by following me on my tumblr (officialtrashbin). I hope you liked it so far!


End file.
